Earlier this week, National Basketball Association superstar LeBron James announced that he would have no further comment on the NBA-China controversy, which was prompted by a now-deleted, pro-Hong Kong democracy tweet from Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey. This was a probably a good idea, because James’ initial response clanged off the backboard, or whatever roundball cliche applies.
A bunch of Chinese companies (and business and government in China is the same thing) have cut ties with the Rockets and the NBA.
This turn of events has made the socially conscious NBA and its progressive commissioner Adam Silver (a.k.a. “My Favorite Martian”), and its business partners, very nervous about their cash flow, resulting in all sorts of apologies.
LeBron James Knows More than Morey
In commenting about the Morey situation, James’ absurd comments that Morey lacked sufficient education about Hong Kong attracted a lot of attention.
James is one of many pampered NBA luminaries, including virtue-signaling phony Steve Kerr, the social justice warrior coach of the Golden State Warriors, who are hardly shy about categorizing America’s flaws and bitterly condemning U.S. President Donald Trump’s flaws in the name of social justice.
Yet James — who is probably doing the bidding of China-compromised shoe companies like Nike — claimed that when it comes to China’s communist dictatorship, freedom of speech can have negative ramifications.
The multimillionaire Los Angeles Lakers star also implied that Morey was only thinking about himself. This self-unaware statement must be a form of extreme projection, when you think about LBJ’s self-centered NBA career in forcing team to make trades, sign free agents, hiring and firing coaches, abandoning one franchise after another, and further forms of diva behavior that we probably won’t find out about until years down the road. The sports media, with a few exceptions, have rushed to apologize and rationalize for King James.
By no means, is the NBA is the only U.S. industry that has groveled to Beijing in perhaps the worst form of crony capitalism or corporate socialism in existence. Hollywood, the tech industry firms like Apple, Google, and Facebook, and other multinatonal business entities have similarly caved.
The NBA Chokes on Free Speech
Bottom line: This NBA controversy has made it clear that China’s biggest export is not product. When China was admitted to the World Trade Organization, the West gullibly expected that it could export free-market democracy to China.
Instead, China’s communist regime has exported censorship to the West.
“Hundreds of American companies are self-censoring to preserve access to the enormous Chinese consumer market,” the Washington Post noted.
James also bemoaned people connected to the NBA who could have been harmed in various ways, including physically, by Morey’s tweet. He seems to completely unaware, for example, that in very physical encounters, Hong Kong police have been deploying tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannons and firing rubber bullets at Hong Kong’s pro-Democracy protesters in addition to beatings, and the violence could escalate further. Police have allegedly shot and killed several protesters.
“James’ embarrassing comments come at a time when the NBA is under fire for appeasing China while showing no regard for the values of free speech. Morey was forced to grovel publicly for offending China at a time when the NBA was celebrating its supposedly ‘woke’ liberal opinions on social issues,” Big League Politics explained.
In the editorial embedded below, FS1 Speak for Yourself host Jason Whitlock compared LeBron James, Nike founder Phil Knight, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to “General Tso’s Chicken.”
Ironically, in a social media message from January 2018 meant as a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. that is now recirculating, LeBron James shared the MLK quote that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Woke League Ignores China’s Social Injustice
On his Outkick the Coverage blog (and underscored on his Periscope broadcast), Whitlock’s Fox Sports colleague Clay Travis accused LeBron James of “bending the knee” to China’s dictators.
“On one level, it’s incredibly funny that LeBron thought he was going to put out the NBA’s China fire with these comments. But on another level it’s unbelievably insulting to Americans of all political persuasions that a man who is going to become a billionaire because of American freedoms is willing to sell those same exact freedoms to China in exchange for a bit more money…Despite what others like Steve Kerr have tried to sell you, Morey spoke out in support of Hong Kong protesters who are seeking to preserve their democratic rights, which are slowly being constricted by communist rulers in China. MOREY SPOKE OUT IN FAVOR OF DEMOCRACY. You don’t need to have a doctorate in Chinese history to know that democracy is good. This is like believing cancer is bad…”
“We’re at a pivot point in world history. Are we going to allow China to dictate terms of engagement with us and the rest of the world or are we going to dictate our own terms of engagement?…But make no mistake what’s really happening here: LeBron is speaking out in favor of a Chinese dictatorship entirely to preserve his own financial interests, to ensure that Space Jam 2 is released in China and Nike can continue to sell his shoes all over China. LeBron’s selling his soul for money. This matters a great deal. Will a communist dictatorship lead the world in the 21st century or will a capitalistic democracy? America is the greatest shining light for liberty in world history. While our country is not without flaws, we stand on the side of democracy, free speech, and equal rights for all citizens around the world. China does not. Are we willing to sell those ideals in exchange for Chinese communist cash? LeBron’s answer is yes…”
“What LeBron wants Daryl Morey to do is to shut up and general manage the Houston Rockets basketball team. This is, of course, the same LeBron James who was furious when people tired of his political shots at Donald Trump and told him to shut up and dribble. LeBron was furious when that happened to him, but he’s either too dumb or too in love with Chinese money to realize he’s telling Morey to do the exact same thing. Here’s the truth of the matter, despite the illusion of wokeness that many of you bought into LeBron James only cares about making money. If being woke is good for his money, he’ll be woke. If defending his communist Chinese masters is good for LeBron James, then he’ll defend his communist Chinese masters, but ultimately all that matters to LeBron is that the money keeps coming, no matter what he’s forced to sell in the process. Which is why I’d like to congratulate LeBron on his new Nike marketing slogan….”
A commenter under Travis’ article added this response:
“The problem is, people like Steve Kerr, Lebron, Popovich, etc. are fine bashing and virtue signaling their morality when there’s no risk, and only pats on the back from the leftist media. They think they’re brave, but there’s nothing brave about standing up and making statements that everyone in your audience or critiquers agrees with you about. Once you see that a person can be so noble and virtuous when there’s no risk, but then completely cower when anything negative could happen to their brand or money, it reveals them as cowards. They don’t act out the slogans they claim. They aren’t virtuous, they’re just seeking glorification. If they won’t stand up to China, all of their critique of American society crashes like a house of cards. The human rights violations in China are infinitely worse than what the NBA is crying foul about here in America. Lebron, Kerr, all of these ‘woke’ warriors are cowards. They’ve revealed themselves as frauds. It’s so interesting how ESPN heads will cry ‘racism’ if you tell Lebron to ‘shut up and dribble’, but when Lebron says people who support Hong Kong, such as Morey, need to ‘shut up and general manage’, or just shut in general, is fine critique? The only standards leftists hold are double standards. If ‘shut and just do your job’ is the new standard, then Lebron, Kerr, and all of these pretend sports popes of moral behavior need to shut up about constantly whining about how evil Donald Trump is, all the while ignoring all the same ‘bad things’ that happened under Obama. Let’s be consistent. Until then, all of these warriors have become laughable frauds…. Meanwhile, unlike the NBA, Kerr, Lebron, etc., at least Donald Trump is tough on China, and openly denounces their violations. Trump holds a far greater moral capital here than Lebron and the NBA.”
China Is Transforming the West
Writing in The Atlantic, a liberal publication, former Washington Post Beijing bureau chief John Pomfret recalls how the Carter administration granted most-favored-nation trading status to China, because the country was supposedly “on an unstoppable march to a market economy with free and fair elections.”
China was admitted to the WTO in December 2001 under the same pie-in-the-sky premise. Pomfret lists about 15 corporations in addition to the NBA that “have bent to Chinese whims.”
“I heard this mantra—China is becoming a normal nation! China wants the same thing as us! We are changing China!— nonstop during the decades I spent in China from American diplomats, positive that we would turn China into a more liberal country, and blithe to any worries that China could transform us…. Underlying the firestorm caused by one opinion from one guy in Houston is a broader worry that what America considered its historical mission in China—bringing free-ish markets that would lead to freer people—has failed. But not only that. Even as policy makers fret that China’s government immunized itself from the baleful influence of Western values, they see that it has begun to turn the tables and is exporting its ideology around the world. In short, China has begun to shape and manage us, not the other way around…But even the NBA’s half-hearted nod to Western values is more than most international corporations can muster. When it comes to dealing with China, the league is the exception that is validating concerns about China’s growing ability to do to the developed world what the developed world has failed to do to China.”
A China-Dominated Future Around the Corner
On Thursday, historian Victor Davis Hanson warned about China’s similarly warned about China’s global ambitions that the NBA controversy brought into the forefront:
“U.S. foreign policy toward China seemed to be based on the belief that the more China modernized and the more affluent its citizens became, the more inevitable Chinese political freedom would be…None of that came close to happening. There was never evidence that China wished to end communism — other than to allow some market reforms designed to strengthen its dictatorial rule and its influence overseas. If in the past Chinese communism impoverished its own citizens but left the world mostly alone, now it has enriched more than a billion people at home and terrified 6 billion abroad.
“Far from a newly rich China becoming Westernized politically, the West and the rest of the world are more likely to become politically repressive like China…Outspoken NBA athletes and hip Hollywood celebrities damn the Second Amendment, curse their president and boycott states they find politically incorrect. But they become abject cowards when it comes to China…Why are we becoming more like China than China is like us?
“China has the world’s largest consumer market. Corporations get rich outsourcing their factories to take advantage of its cheap labor. They all compete for lucrative markets of television viewers, tech consumers and students. Western intellectuals always romanticize lethal communists as misguided idealists rather than stone-cold authoritarians. Mao is still a hero to many in the West despite his liquidation of some 50 million people over his violent career.
“China does not fool around. Beijing does not just threaten neutrals, rivals and enemies, but uses it economic clout — and no doubt soon its growing military power — to force acquiescence.
An appeasing world is terrified about what a huge military and economic colossus of 1.4 billion people will soon be able to do to its critics.“All these reasons and more explain why there wasn’t a single major Western politician who warned the world of a frightening, Chinese-dominated future — one in which the West turned into China rather than China into the West.
“The single figure who finally issued such a warning, brash Donald Trump — without prior military or political experience — was as loudly and publicly damned as he was privately and quietly admired for doing so.”
Journalist Michael Yon has reported on Hong Kong pro-democracy citizens waving American flags during marches. Will or would the NBA wave the American flag or the surrender flag.
Leaving geopolitical concerns aside, on a mundane level, one thing that basketball fans and non-fans can agree on: Every Lakers loss this season is a cause for celebration, including those in Hong Kong who are burning LeBron James jerseys.
Added: More from Clay Travis:
“To me, and I probably need to write an entire article on this, this represents the end of the NBA’s woke era. You simply can’t be politically outspoken on transgender bathroom laws in American states and cities while you’re bending the knee to China, which has infinitely worse human rights abuses than anything that exists here.
“The NBA left itself open to this exact situation by becoming a political organization in America and I think it’s a failure of Adam Silver’s leadership that he didn’t realize this might happen.
“Again, I don’t have a problem with a capitalistic organization working to maximize its revenue. That’s why I’ve always said I’d sell Outkick products to communists around the world. But there’s a big difference between taking money from communists and taking money from communists and endorsing their world view. To me, the NBA has done the latter.
“I also think this may herald the death knell for woke sports media in general as well. Have you noticed how silent the usual woke media suspects have been about this story? They’ve completely ignored the NBA and LeBron’s hypocrisy here.
“It’s wild.
“They aren’t even attempting to defend LeBron or the NBA, they’re just shutting up.” In the wake of the China mess, I don’t see how, for instance, an NBA team can win the title and the media can make their decision not to visit the White House a big deal after what happened with China. In fact, I think the immediate question that has to be asked of any coach or player who makes this decision is, ‘So can I assume you’d refuse to play basketball in China as well?’…
“Furthermore, I’m also fascinated by reports that LeBron and other players wanted Daryl Morey suspended for sharing his political belief here. Are they all really so dense that they don’t realize the NBA has allowed them to scream their political opinions to the high heavens with no consequences and now they are demanding a penalty because a general manager endorsed democracy?
“I really think they’re that dense.
“The biggest issue I had with woke sports in general was the presumption that athletes were politically sophisticated. Most, put quite simply, aren’t that educated when it comes to complex political issues. They engaged in politics because it plays well on left wing social media sites like Twitter, but their actual opinions have been shown to be astonishingly naive and lacking in basic comprehension.
“In that, sadly, they reflect the average American, but it’s still jarring that many in the woke sports media wanted to use them as paragons of political activism…
“And that’s why I think…the biggest story here is China’s attempt to require American companies to abide by Chinese values. That’s a seismic story here that I think many are missing. China has moved from requiring American companies to comply with Chinese laws and customs inside their country to, for instance, show a move to attempting to require American companies to comply with Chinese laws and customs outside the borders of the country, even, as was the case here, in America.
“That’s a monumentally big shift that deserves serious analysis and contemplation.”
